


Walking the Broken Road

by flipflop_diva



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Male-Female Friendship, Missing Scene, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15155801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: The first time she met him, she really didn’t think too much of a him. A broken white boy standing petrified in her lab. An experiment T’Challa wanted her to solve.





	Walking the Broken Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).



> Written for the Not for Prime Time 2018 fest for lionessvalenti, who wanted a fic about people having great relationships with Shuri (who lionessvalenti says is the best and I happen to agree!). I hope you enjoy!

The first time she met him, she really didn’t think too much of a him. A broken white boy standing petrified in her lab. An experiment T’Challa wanted her to solve.

“You brought me a broken white boy to fix?” she said to T’Challa after her brother told her what he wished her to do.

“I brought you a man to heal,” T’Challa said.

Shuri laughed. “Even though a week ago, you were fighting other people to keep him locked up?”

T’Challa was trying hard not to smile. She could tell. “Circumstances change,” he said.

“I see they do,” she said, then laughed again. “Don’t you worry, Brother. I will fix your broken white boy for you.”

She did fix him. That part was easy. Their meeting was not quite as such.

She told him — James, he told her — to sit. She needed to examine him. He almost jumped out of his skin when she touched him. She frowned at him.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, and repeatedly. “I don’t like doctors.”

“You have seen many in your years,” she said.

“Almost none of them were nice.”

“Well, good thing I am nice,” Shuri said. “And I am not a doctor. I am a scientist.”

“The scientists I met were even worse than the doctors,” Bucky told her.

“That is unfortunate,” she said. “I am an even nicer scientist than I am a doctor.”

“You just said you’re not a doctor.”

She laughed. “See? You are catching on!”

In the end, she constructed a room in the middle of the lab, formatting it more like a bedroom than a place where she conducted her research. She brought it a bed and some comfy chairs, painted the walls in shades of blue and hung photos of oceans and puppies.

“Puppies?” T’Challa asked her.

She shrugged. “Everyone likes puppies.”

She showed James the room the next time he came in. He looked at her strangely.

“Why?” he said.

“Because we are going to be spending a lot of time together,” she said. “It helps if you are comfortable when we do this.”

“And you can really do this?” he said. “You can fix my brain and make it normal.”

“Of course I can.”

“T’Challa says you are sixteen,” Bucky said.

“Yes, I am,” Shuri answered. “Now let’s get started.”

•••

It took weeks. But they were good weeks. She and James spent hours together every day. 

“I need to retrain your brain,” she told him. “It takes time.”

“We have as much time as you need,” he said.

Sometimes they talked, when they took breaks or when they ate lunch or when they greeted each other in the morning. She told him about life in Wakanda, and the very few times she had been outside it.

“My brother took me to a gala once,” she told him. “Some fancy United Nations event. Back when our father was still alive.”

“And?” James asked.

“And those shoes were very uncomfortable!” Shuri said, and laughed. “Very high and very tight!”

“I’ll bring you to a real party some time,” James told her.

“With your friend who brought you here?” she asked curiously.

“Him and others.”

“Tell me about him,” she said.

And he did. He told her of how he grew up, about the boy he called Steve. He told her how Steve became Captain America, how they fought the Nazis. He even told her the last thing he remembered, about falling off the train.

“It was all bad from there,” he said. “Until I saw Steve again. Until I started to remember. It’s still a bit bad though.”

“I am sorry,” Shuri told him. “Once we fix you, it might not always be bad.”

“Do you think your brother will let me stay here for a while?”

“If he does not, I shall kick his ass and make him!”

As the weeks passed and James became more comfortable, they left the lab. She showed him around Wakanda — around the palace and the fields where she used to play and introduced him to the Dora Milaje and the girls who were her friends when she left her lab to see them. They ate meals together and she told him about her childhood and about all the mean things T’Challa used to do to her when she was a kid.

He laughed when she said, as a kid, he used to pull her ponytails.

“Why do you laugh?” she asked. “It hurt!”

He laughed more. “Why do I have a feeling you did more to him than he ever did to her?”

“I am offended!” Shuri said.

“But correct,” said a voice behind them, and Shuri rolled her eyes at her brother. “This one was always the troublemaker. Still is.”

“Oh, Brother,” she said. “You are always telling tales.”

“Telling truths,” T’Challa said.

“Telling tales,” Shuri whispered to James, and she smiled when his eyes lit up and he laughed.

•••

T’Challa did as Shuri expected and let James stay when they were finished. She needed to keep an eye on him, to make sure there was no relapse, and he was not yet ready to get back into the fight. Besides, his friend was on the run, and Shuri knew James — White Wolf, as she had nicknamed him — did not need to go back to that life for as long as he could help it.

She showed him to the little hut that T’Challa had done up for him to stay in, walking out there with him on a warm, sunny afternoon.

“You will come visit me out here?” James asked her as they approached.

“Every day,” she said. “I need to make sure that brain of yours is working correctly.” She smiled. “Can’t have you messing up my work and ruining my reputation.”

“Can’t have that,” James said, then, “Is that the only reason?”

“If you think that is the only reason, you have not been paying much attention these last few months.”

“Good,” he said. “I would miss you if you were not here.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “No chance of that.”

They had reached his door. She pushed it open.

“Welcome home, White Wolf.”


End file.
